Part 1
Chapter 8

AS Grandfather was a great admirer of the apostle
Eliot, he was glad to comply with the earnest
request which Laurence had made at the close of
the last chapter. So he proceeded to describe how
good Mr. Eliot labored, while he was at work
upon

THE INDIAN BIBLE.

My dear children, what a task would you think it,
even with a long lifetime before you, were you
bidden to copy every chapter, and verse, and word
in yonder family Bible! Would not this be a heavy
toil? But if the task were, not to write off the
English Bible, but to learn a language utterly
unlike all other tongues,--a language which
hitherto had never been learned, except by the
Indians themselves, from their mothers' lips,--a
language never written, and the strange words of
which seemed inexpressible by letters,--if the
task were, first to learn this new variety of
speech, and then to translate the Bible into it,
and to do it so carefully that not one idea
throughout the holy book should be changed,--what
would induce you to undertake this toil? Yet
this was what the apostle Eliot did.

It was a
mighty work for a man, now growing old, to take
upon himself. And what earthly reward could he
expect from it? None; no reward on earth. But he
believed that the red men were the descendants of
those lost tribes of Israel of whom history has
been Fable to tell us nothing for thousands of
years. He hoped that God had sent the English
across the ocean, Gentiles as they were, to
enlighten this benighted portion of his once
chosen race. And when he should be summoned
hence, he trusted to meet blessed spirits in
another world, whose bliss would have been earned
by his patient toil in translating the word of
God. This hope and trust were far dearer to him
than anything that earth could offer.

Sometimes, while thus at work, he was visited by
learned men, who desired to know what literary
undertaking Mr. Eliot had in hand. They, like
himself, had been bred in the studious cloisters of a
university, and were supposed to possess all the
erudition which mankind has hoarded up from age to
age. Greek and Latin were as familiar to them as
the babble of their childhood. Hebrew was like
their mother tongue. They had grown gray in
study; their eyes were bleared with poring over
print and manuscript by the light of the midnight
lamp.

And yet, how much had they left unlearned!
Mr. Eliot would put into their hands some of the
pages which he had been writing; and behold! the
gray-headed men stammered over the long, strange
words, like a little child in his first attempts
to read. Then would the apostle call to him an
Indian boy, one of his scholars, and show him the
manuscript which had so puzzled the learned
Englishmen.

"Read this, my child,"
would he say; "these are some brethren of
mine, who would fain hear the sound of thy native
tongue."

Then would the Indian boy cast his
eyes over the mysterious page, and read it so
skilfully that it sounded like wild music. It
seemed as if the forest leaves were singing
in the ears of his auditors, and as if the roar of
distant streams were poured through the young
Indian's voice. Such were the sounds amid which
the language of the red man had been formed; and
they were still heard to echo in it.

The lesson
being over, Mr. Eliot would give the Indian boy
an apple or a cake, and bid him leap forth into
the open air which his free nature loved. The
apostle was kind to children, and even shared in
their sports sometimes. And when his visitors had
bidden him farewell, the good man turned patiently
to his toil again.

No other Englishman had ever
understood the Indian character so well, nor
possessed so great an influence over the New
England tribes, as the apostle did. His advice
and assistance must often have been valuable to
his countrymen in their transactions with the
Indians. Occasionally, perhaps, the governor and
some of the councillors came to visit Mr. Eliot.
Perchance they were seeking some method to
circumvent the forest people. They inquired, it
may be, how they could obtain possession of such
and such a tract of their rich land. Or they
talked of making the Indians their servants; as if
God had destined them for perpetual bondage to
the more powerful white man.

Perhaps, too, some
warlike captain, dressed in his buff coat, with a
corselet beneath it, accompanied the governor and
councillors. Laying his hand upon his sword hilt,
he would declare, that the only method of dealing
with the red men was to meet them with the sword
drawn and the musket presented.

But the apostle
resisted both the craft of the politician and
the fierceness of the warrior.

"Treat these
sons of the forest as men and brethren,"
he would say; "and let us
endeavor to make them Christians. Their
forefathers were of that chosen race whom God
delivered from Egyptian bondage. Perchance he has
destined us to deliver the children from the more
cruel bondage of ignorance and idolatry.
Chiefly for this end, it may be, we were directed
across the ocean."

When these other visitors
were gone, Mr. Eliot bent himself again over the
half-written page. He dared hardly relax a moment
from his toil. He felt that, in the book which he
was translating, there was a deep human as well as
heavenly wisdom, which would of itself suffice to
civilize and refine the savage tribes. Let the
Bible be diffused among them, and all earthly good
would follow. But how slight a consideration
was this, when he reflected that the eternal
welfare of a whole race of men depended upon his
accomplishment of the task which he had set
himself! What if his hands should be palsied?
What if his mind should lose its vigor? What if
death should come upon him ere the work were done?
Then must the red man wander in the dark
wilderness of heathenism forever.

Impelled by
such thoughts as these, he sat writing in the
great chair when the pleasant summer breeze came
in through his open casement; and also when the
fire of forest logs sent up its blaze and smoke,
through the broad stone chimney, into the wintry
air. Before the earliest bird sang in the morning
the apostle's lamp was kindled; and, at midnight,
his weary head was not yet upon its pillow. And
at length, leaning back in the great chair, he
could say to himself, with a holy triumph,
"The work is finished!"

It was finished.
Here was a Bible for the Indians. Those
long-lost descendants of the ten tribes of Israel
would now learn the history of their forefathers.
That grace which the ancient Israelites had
forfeited was offered anew to their children.

There is no impiety in believing that, when his
long life was over, the apostle of the Indians was
welcomed to the celestial abodes by the prophets
of ancient days and by those earliest apostles and
evangelists who had drawn their inspiration from
the immediate presence of the Saviour. They first
had preached truth and salvation to the world.
And Eliot, separated from them by many centuries,
yet full of the same spirit, had borne the like
message to the New World of the west. Since the
first days of Christianity, there has been no man
more worthy to be numbered in the brotherhood of
the apostles than Eliot.

"My heart is not satisfied to think,"
observed Laurence, "that Mr. Eliot's
labors have done no good except to a few Indians
of his own time. Doubtless he would not have
regretted his toil, if it were the means of saving
but a single soul. But it is a grievous thing to
me that he should have toiled so hard to translate
the Bible, and now the language and the people are
gone! The Indian Bible itself is almost the only
relic of both."

"Laurence," said
his Grandfather, "if ever you should doubt
that man is capable of disinterested zeal for his
brother's good, then remember how the apostle
Eliot toiled. And if you should feel your own
self-interest pressing upon your heart too
closely, then think of Eliot's Indian Bible. It
is good for the world that such a man has lived
and left this emblem of his life."

The tears gushed into the eyes of Laurence, and
he acknowledged that Eliot had not toiled in vain.
Little Alice put up her arms to Grandfather, and
drew down his white head beside her own golden
locks.

"Grandfather," whispered she,
"I want to kiss good Mr. Eliot!"

And,
doubtless, good Mr. Eliot would gladly receive
the kiss of so sweet a child as little Alice, and
would think it a portion of his reward in heaven.

Grandfather now observed that Dr. Francis had
written a very beautiful Life of Eliot, which he
advised Laurence to peruse. He then spoke of
King Philip's War, which began in 1675, and
terminated with the death of King Philip, in the
following year. Philip was a proud, fierce
Indian, whom Mr. Eliot had vainly endeavored to
convert to the Christian faith.

"It must
have been a great anguish to the apostle,"
continued Grandfather, "to hear of mutual
slaughter and outrage between his own countrymen
and those for whom he felt the affection of a
father. A few of the praying Indians joined the
followers of King Philip. A greater number fought
on the side of the English. In the course of the
war the little community of red people whom Mr.
Eliot had begun to civilize was scattered, and
probably never was restored to a flourishing
condition. But his zeal did not grow cold; and
only about five years before his death he took
great pains in preparing a new edition of the
Indian Bible."

"I do wish,
Grandfather," cried Charley, "you would
tell us all about the battles in King Philip's
War."

"No,
Charley," replied Grandfather, "I have
no time to spare in talking about battles. You
must be content with knowing that it was the
bloodiest war that the Indians had ever waged
against the white men; and that, at its close, the
English set King Philip's head upon a pole."

"Who was the captain of the English?"
asked Charley.

"Their most noted captain was
Benjamin Church,--a very famous warrior,"
said Grandfather. "But I assure you,
Charley, that neither Captain Church, nor any of
the officers and soldiers who fought in King
Philip's War, did anything a thousandth part so
glorious as Mr. Eliot did when he translated the
Bible for the Indians."

"Let Laurence be
the apostle," said Charley to himself,
"and I will be the captain."